Encore post: Going bananas

I never should've looked.

As you may know, I often use Starbucks as my branch office when I'm working on an assignment. And, being a creature of habit, I always have a grande decaf and a slice of Banana Walnut Bread while I'm working.

Now, I've never been under the impression that it's a diet snack. But I always thought, you know - bananas? walnuts? - how bad can it be.

Well, today I found out.

A law went into effect the first of the year saying restaurants/coffee shops now have to post the calorie content of their food where the customer can see it before ordering. Which, as you can see, Starbucks has done.

Not that I ever gave any thought to it at all, but if I had I would've figured maybe 200, 250 calories. Come to find out I would've been off. By half.

It's just not fair. Where I once was just wistful and carefree ordering my faux healthy banana bread, I now find myself sweating like Mel Gibson at Passover dinner deciding whether I can justify that many calories for a snack.

Being beautiful isn't easy. I don't have to tell you.

Maybe next time I'll try to find someone else at the "office" who wants to split a slice with me. Maybe I'll just do without.

I did notice that my Starbucks sells real bananas at the register. I don't see a lot of fat chimps running around. Wonder how many calories in those?

Ace 2014-2023

At first, Ace wasn’t the one. Gus was the one.

It was January 2016, and we were only a few weeks past losing Max, the world’s greatest dog. I’d been saying loudly and repeatedly I wasn’t going to be ready for another dog for a long while, and I didn’t want to hear any conversation about racing out to replace Max (as if any dog could ever replace him).

Fast forward three and half weeks. I started scrolling the Westside German Shepherd Rescue website and came across Gus. He looked like an awesome dog, and bore quite the resemblance to Max. And since WGSR was having an open house soon, I thought what would be the harm In going down there and shaking paws with Gus in person.

So on a Saturday morning, with the wife and daughter in the living room in their jammies watching a leftover Hallmark Channel Christmas movie, which explains why I have no recollection of it, I came bursting in fully showered, dressed and ready to go.

”Where are we going?”

”Downtown to the Westside German Shepherd Rescue. Just to look.”

I’d never had a rescue dog and was curious about it and what the dogs were like. Max had been a German import: a true German German Shepherd we had since he was a puppy. I thought if we ever got a rescue, it'd be strange not to know who he was from the time he was a puppy, but it might be nice to have one that came housebroken, with adult teeth and without an appetite for couches and pillows.

At the open house, Gus was beautiful but scared, as many of the dogs were. Clearly he'd had an abusive prior owner and was fearful of people, particularly men. This is true of a lot of rescue dogs. When you see these beautiful dogs recoil and put their tail between their legs when you try to pet them, it makes you hope there’s a deep, dark circle in hell for people who abuse these animals.

Anyway, after meeting Gus, another shepherd named Jake and a couple others, we were ready to head back home. The woman at WSGR who’d been doing the introductions, and seeing we weren’t having much luck, asked us what we were looking for. We basically described another Max. She said, “Hang on, I have someone I want you to meet.”

She went in back, and a few minutes later came out with Ace.

He was beautiful. Where Max’s eyes had been dark, Ace’s were light brown and a little freaky looking. Max had smaller triangle-shaped ears, and Ace had two giant ears sticking straight up that we figured could pick up 300 channels. Max was a long-haired German Shepherd. Ace was a short hair.

We spent some time with Ace, walked with him a bit and then let my daughter walk him. She got down to eye level with him, where he proceeded to put his giant paw in her hand and give her face a sloppy, paint roller size licking.

That did it. We were at the point of no return.

Ace was our beautiful boy for six years. Every German Shepherd bonds with a person, and in Ace's case it was my wife. He was her shadow, her protector, her love, following her everywhere and always having to know where she was and what she was doing.

If she'd had plans for a life going to the bathroom alone, Ace put an end to them.

About three years ago, we discovered in the most terrifying way that Ace had epilepsy. I've posted about it here, so I won't revisit all the gory details now. We managed his seizures, which would run few and far between and then, for no reason, frighteningly close to each other.

Last Friday, Ace had a seizure that medically and behaviorally altered him in a way he couldn't come back from. So we made the decision every pet owner dreads, and knows they'll have to make eventually. As my friend Scott Thomson says, "They're angels with expiration dates."

We wanted to make his send off as lovely, if that's a word you can use, as possible for him. We gave him an In-N-Out burger-double patty (but not a Double Double cause of the cheese - he was an all meat guy). We leashed him up and took him for a long walk around the neighborhood, where he got in all his usual sniffs and explorations. When he got back to the house, he enjoyed some whipped cream his favorite way: straight from the can. He was in good spirits.

Instead of a cold veterinary office, we had a vet come to the house and said our goodbyes through our tears in the backyard. We were all down on the ground around him, holding him and making sure he knew how much we loved him.

Right now I imagine Ace and Max having a conversation about how the wife, daughter and I were as dog owners.

ACE: Did he do that stupid treat-in-his-mouth thing with you?

MAX: All the time! But it made him happy so I put up with it.

ACE: He'd always brag about how we'd never rip his face off.

MAX: Good thing he wasn't a mind reader!

ACE and MAX laugh hysterically.

Ace was the strong, silent type. And without his giant presence and even bigger heart, now the house is silent.

We'll miss his manly sighs when he laid his powerful body down. The way he looked up at you with his "Don't you love me?" face whenever we held anything edible in our hands. The look on his face when he'd lay dreaming on the love seat. His joyful howling when he knew he was going on a walk.

We're going to miss every little thing about him, and we'll love him forever.

Most people get one great dog in their life if they're lucky. As the wife said, we definitely exceeded our quota.

ACE: Who're all these treats and giant bones for?

MAX: They're for us pal!

ACE: Do we take them over that bridge right now?

MAX: Not yet. We're going to wait here awhile.

Encore post: No know how

As I've written about on here before, I'm about to embark on a bold, new, money-sucking, patience-straining, marriage-testing, argument-inducing adventure: my kitchen and living room remodel.

Like everyone who goes down this road of no return, my journey began at Home Depot and Lowe's. The wife and I didn't just go there to get ideas about bathroom vanities, kitchen sinks, drawer pulls and countertops. We were also armed with a list of items from our contractor we had to either purchase or make decisions on before they start.

If you know anything about me, you know I like figuring out how things work and, if needed, could MacGyver a way into building a house from the ground up using only a hammer, spatula, paper straws and lawn grass.

Nah, I'm just funnin' you. I can't put together a bookshelf from Ikea. But I can tell you the first film Jeff Goldblum was in—that's gotta be worth something at some point.

Where was I? Oh, right. So to paraphrase Blanche DuBois in Streetcar Named Desire, when it comes to construction I do depend on the knowledge of strangers. Of course it helps if the strangers actually know more than I do. And while there are a lot of scary things about this process, not least among them is the frightening fact I may already have more answers to my questions than the people who work at Home Depot or Lowe's. That just ain't right.

The good news is the big box hardware and lumber stores aren't the only game in town. Fortunately, thanks to a trusted recommendation, we discovered the family-owned Faucets & Fixtures in Orange. They have a quiet little storefront in a not great section of Tustin Avenue that comes nowhere near tipping its hand to the remodeling wonderland waiting inside.

In an experience that was a first, their employees know all about the inventory and are able to answer all the questions. "Yes it comes in polished nickel, but it's plastic-y on the inside." "You can get the one-piece Memoirs toilet, but the two-piece is about $400 cheaper." "That's a stock medicine cabinet, but we can custom build one for you no problem." "The sink is ten inches deep, but the porcelain finish is brighter and thicker on that one." The store has a big selection, yet isn't overwhelming.

I could make a hundred trips to Home Depot and Lowe's, and never get as much done as we accomplished in a couple hours at Faucets & Fixtures with our man Austin.

The point is this-once you've had knowledgable, friendly, patient customer service, there's no going back. It's like going from J.C.Penny to Nordstrom. Stater Bros. to Trader Joe's. Winchell's to Starbuck's (Those are big corporations, but you get my continental drift).

From now on, it's mom and pop, family-owned, highly recommended merchants for all things having to do with the remodel and beyond.

And in case you're looking to win a bar bet, his first movie was Death Wish.

Fall back

Ooops I did it again.

I'm actually not a clumsy person, but you wouldn't know it from this post. Or this one. Subconsciously it may be because I believe in the rule of three more strongly than I thought, because this will be the third post I've done about me falling hard and flat on my back like a ton of bricks.

Fat, Jewish bricks.

Here's what happened.

I was minding my own business, doing award-winning, crowd-pleasing, results-getting, competition-killing, raise-worthy work at my bedroom desk for my 100% remote job with the world's leading cybersecurity company. In the course of that vitally important work, I make it a point to stay hydrated.

As one does.

Since it was just after noon, I started out to the kitchen to see if there was something good hiding out in the fridge for lunch. But before I got there, I turned around and went back to my desk to clear two water glasses (see hydration above) and put them in the dishwasher.

Are you with me so far? We're coming up on the part where the hardwood floor breaks my fall. And almost my back.

As I reached for the glasses, my very fashionable yet reasonably priced Vionic flip-flops got caught between the plastic desk chair mat and the area rug it overlaps. I started falling forward, water glasses in hand. Then I thought, let's see if I can put my early years as a danseur with the New York City Ballet to good use—if I turn, maybe I can slow my roll by grabbing the edge of the bed. The glasses went flying from my hands. I tried grabbing the bed and missed, which isn't easy cause that sucker is a two kids, two adults and two dog accommodating California King.

Thanks to the inertia, momentum, velocity and enormous amount of gravity at work, that giant thud you heard a little after noon PST today was me.

As luck—my luck—would have it, I was home alone: my daughter has a big time advertising job and had to go into her real office to work, and the wife had to take our German Shepherd Ace to the vet for some blood work. So I laid there a minute on the floor, my back screaming every swear word it knows at me, and tried to figure out how I was going to stand up.

The answer was fast. I sat up, grabbed the bed for leverage and got myself up off the floor. With that one move, it quickly became apparent my back wasn't going to be done swearing and screaming at me any time soon.

Just like my high school girlfriend.

Fortunately I had an acupuncture appointment this afternoon, so I managed to lower myself into my thirteen-year old Lexus ES350 (I really need a car with higher ground clearance) and went. And instead of working on my feet (long story, another post), he worked on my back.

It felt better for a little while afterwards. I don't know if it was physical or mental, but you can say that about most things with me.

So tonight, it's the heating pad on and off every twenty minutes, trying to keep the grunting sounds every time I move to a reasonable volume and not moving around too much. With any luck it'll start to feel better in the morning, and I'll be in for a quick recovery in the coming days.

Of course, the bad news is my Cirque du Soleil audition is off for now.

Encore post: Non-essential personnel

There’s been a great deal of discussion about essential and non-essential workers these past ten months. In the middle of a devastating pandemic, we quickly found out who we absolutely needed and who we could live without.

And the surprises weren’t all that surprising.

The people we take for granted day in and day out—grocery checkers and stockers, delivery people. Obviously the frontline medical heroes. The under siege postal workers (buy stamps). People who keep security and infrastructure going. As well as a long list of others.

And hey, you'll never guess who wasn’t considered essential. Give up? I hate for you to hear it this way but it's people who work in advertising agencies. I know, I’m as shocked as you are.

But here's something we know deep down in those places we don't talk about: the harsh reality is that was true even before the pandemic. And it’ll be true after.

Truth can be such a cruel mistress.

Come to find out in a non-existent survey not conducted by Gallop, that in the time of Covid, turns out people across every demographic—including some that haven’t even been segmented yet—actually set priorities about what's essential and what isn't.

While people are busy worrying whether a cough is just a cough or whether it's a debilitating virus that's going to have them fighting for their lives in the ER, oddly enough they don’t consider banner ads, screen takeovers, wild postings, commercials of any kind (with the exception of those two Match.com Satan ads), radio spots repeating the phone number three times, bus shelters, outdoor, paid social, email, direct response tchotchkes (no I didn't look up the spelling, yes it's correct), online surveys, YouTube pre-rolls, theater ads that piss you off before the movie (remember movies?), product placement in those movies, brochures, endcaps, welcome kits and more essential.

Even more non-essential? People who create them.

But fear not fellow agency people. Remember that many great artists aren't appreciated in their own time. Eventually this too shall pass, and people will come out of the plague culture and discover they hold a deep appreciation and fond nostalgia for all the ads they saw that began with "These are challenging times..." and ended with "We're in this together."

Someday the world at large will see the sense in theoretically normal-thinking adults putting their health and the health of loved ones at risk to bring them commercials that involved people breaking into dance for no reason, running footage, bite and smiles and people who aren't doctors but play one on television.

You know, the same as usual except now the people in them wear masks.

I've heard the arguments: we're keeping the economy going during a bad time. Bringing information people would have no. other. way. of getting. Setting an example by being at work, etc.

I got news for you. Essentially, you're kidding yourself.

Encore post: Client rewrites

I'm doing something right now I'd advise anyone writing a blog not to do. I'm writing this post while I'm extremely pissed off. I know what you're thinking, "But Jeff, you're usually so funny and easygoing and levelheaded, what could possibly put you in such a foul mood?"

Well, I'll tell you. Clients who want to be copywriters.

There's a story I may have told before here, but it bears repeating. Paul Keye, who owned Keye Donna Perlstein, one of the great Los Angeles creative shops that isn't around anymore, wasn't just the creative director. He was also a copywriter, and a great one at that. He was presenting his work at a client meeting, and the client was being particularly dickish about it. Finally the client made some bullshit, insignificant, arbitrary change, like "the" to "a". He looked up at Paul and said, "What can I say Paul, I'm a frustrated copywriter."

To which Paul took a beat, then replied, "No, I'm the frustrated copywriter. You're an asshole."

Any copywriter who's been in the ad biz more than ten minutes has had the joyless experience of the client reworking their copy, with total disregard for what goes into creating it. Even when they like the copy, clients rarely get the nuance, cadence, subtlety, humor and rhythm of words well written. One of the most common places they take refuge is "I don't get it, how will any of our customers?"

Respect from clients for consumers intelligence is harder to find than a Christmas bonus.

Don't get me wrong: I'm sure occasionally a client will contribute something positive and helpful that doesn't make the copy sound like a strategy statement. Just like occasionally I believe I'll win the lottery, or Scarlett Johansson will return my calls.

If you think I'm painting clients in broad strokes and generalizations, take a look and listen to TV and radio commercials tonight. They were all client approved before they got there. We'll talk about the ratio of good to bad when you're done.

Originally this post was going to be about the subject of overthinking, but then I realized it's essentially the same thing. Clients examine copy with a magnifying glass the consumer will never use—assuming they even read the copy in the first place (you know the old saying).

It is endlessly frustrating with one client. The good news however is I have several who've been chiming in on how they think it should read. Copy by committee. Mmmm mmmm good.

Here's what I try to think about to keep it all in perspective. When Goodby had the notoriously bad Carl's Jr. account, they insisted on rewriting virtually everything that was presented to them. When asked about it, Jeff Goodby allegedly said, "It's a great deal. They write the copy and pay me." After it left, Goodby apologized to the staff for taking the business in the first place.

Whenever a creative chimes in with anything unflattering about the client, they're usually met with the fact that the client pays the bill and can have it the way they want. Thanks, but we already know this. I pay my doctor bills, but I don't get to tell him how to do the surgery. But then medicine isn't a collaborative sport like advertising. Which leads me to another thing: we're not curing cancer here. Don't get me started.

Here's the thing: this isn't my first rodeo. I know clients are always going to be changing copy, sometimes with the genuine intention of thinking they're making it better. And sometimes just because they're frustrated copywriters.

So I'll try to keep Jeff Goodby's comment in mind, along with my own personal motto.

The checks clear.

You may already be a wiener

Seems you can’t go a day without reading or hearing about a labor shortage hitting one industry or another. Well, here’s the good news. Opportunity is knocking where you’d least expect it.

Oscar Meyer is looking for Wienermobile drivers.

You’re probably asking yourself the same question I did: Where do I sign? Before you make the jump and become an official “Hotdogger,” you should know there are some other responsibilities that go along with the position besides just riding around all day with a giant wiener.

Which, trust me, isn’t as easy as it sounds.

Anyway, here’s part of the job description on their recruitment site:

To represent Oscar Mayer as a brand ambassador through radio and television appearances, newspaper interviews, grocery retail and charity functions. To “meat” and greet people from coast to coast.

So far, so good. But if you take a closer look, there’s a little line they managed to slip in there that would have me clenching my buns:"To maintain company car". Apparently you’re expected to keep that giant wiener up and running.

Don’t quote me on this, but I’m guessing it's not covered by AAA. So let’s say your giant wiener keeps going down. Now what do you do? You're gonna have search for a tow truck to rent, and the last thing you want is to be seen pulling your big wiener across state lines. AmIrite?

It seems to me wiener maintenance like oiling and polishing it should be provided by the Oscar Meyer company. I mean really, is it that hard?

Anyway, if you’re up for the challenge, or as the site says, ”Do you cut the mustard?” , you can always send in an application and see what happens.

I don’t relish the idea of waiting for an answer, but you might handle it better.